What they are about is local, private fiefdoms. Rather than a strong central government, the strategic goal of the Iraqi insurgency may in fact be chaos; the endpoint not a nation-state but warlord-power in an atmosphere congenial to criminal activity. The War College monograph Strategic Implications of Intercommunal Warfare in Iraq by Andrew Terrill points out that the major danger facing Iraq isn't that the insurgency will somehow defeat and expel the US Armed Forces, however devoutly the Left may wish that. The real danger is that the insurgency will ignite a civil war in the years after the US withdrawal.
It covers this issue in many failing states.... |